


and below them slept the earth

by amainiris



Series: in her heart it was always winter [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 22:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amainiris/pseuds/amainiris
Summary: Sansa was losing all of the dragon queen now; it was hard to remember the white blaze of heat in the reflection of the pearly gray skies, the press of Dany’s fingers in the absence of her hands. The image of Dany she guarded jealously, though she didn’t know why: the delicate fingernails, like seashells, the childlike wrists and slight curve of her waist.“Funny, isn’t it?” The queen had murmured to Sansa, just before Sansa had left her forever. She’d held Sansa’s hair in her hands, smiling, very close. “It’s just like fire.”Sansa had warmed to the idea, knowing at once what she meant. “And yours…”The dragon queen’s hair was like winter, she’d thought. Like snow.Daenerys goes North.





	and below them slept the earth

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of the fic 'cinders'.

_ It’s summer now, _ Sansa thought to herself, _ and I’m still so cold. _

It wasn’t that she didn’t know why; it wasn’t that she didn’t remember what she’d left, though at times she very nearly wished she could. Those were the worst moments: at night, alone, on her balcony wrapped in sky. She would peer upward, search for holes in the heavens, wonder at the constellations and remember the names of the ones that Daenerys had taught her. The Essosi and the Westerosi saw the stars differently; what Sansa’s father had told her was the Summer Wolf, Daenerys had called the Stallion. 

Sansa was losing all of the dragon queen now; it was hard to remember the white blaze of heat in the reflection of the pearly gray skies, the press of Dany’s fingers in the absence of her hands. This image of Dany she guarded jealously, though she didn’t know why: the delicate fingernails, like seashells, the childlike wrists and slight curve of her waist. 

“Funny, isn’t it?” The queen had murmured to Sansa, just before Sansa had left her forever. She’d held Sansa’s hair in her hands, smiling, very close. “It’s just like fire.”

Sansa had warmed to the idea, knowing at once what she meant. “And yours…”

The dragon queen’s hair was like winter, she’d thought. Like snow. 

  
  
  
  
  


She’d been quiet upon her return to Winterfell, unable to understand how her heart could break and forge at once, why Bran’s smile when he first saw her made her ragged with grief. She’d pressed him to her, someone she couldn’t bear to lose again, and marveled at how much time had passed. Moments, she thought, or lifetimes. There wasn’t so much of a difference, really.

Rickon was someone different entirely, somehow even more than Bran, though there was still a fierceness to him that she expected would never leave. She’d smiled at the sight of Shaggydog and Summer running through the snow to her -- _ they remember me _, she’d thought, heart expanding with that long unfelt burst of joy -- and Arya… Arya.

“I came,” Sansa said softly to her sister, as they stood underneath one of Winterfell’s great dark vaulted ceilings. “And I missed you, Arya, I missed you --”

“You were with the Queen.” Arya’s voice was as sharp as it had ever been, but her features had softened into a vague loveliness, something feral. Sansa wondered if this was how their Aunt Lyanna had looked, and her heart squeezed tight. “Everyone knows that. You could have come sooner.”

Yes, she could have, Sansa knew that. She held out her hands palms-up, as if her sister were a half-wild animal, pleading for the forgiveness that they both wanted so desperately from the other. She knew it; she did, she knew Arya would forgive her, because how could she not? She’d come so _ far _, and when she thought of what she’d left--

Something flickered in those hard iron-gray eyes. “Sansa…”

Hope, so unfamiliar, bloomed in her chest. “What, Arya?”

“We-- we were children, then, you know. And because… because of what we’ve seen, we’re not anymore. And I just hope--” 

And the tears had come at once, hot and pure and salty where they fell to sting her lips. For a few moments Sansa simply shuddered into her own sobs, the release of it exhilarating enough to steal her breath, and then Arya was pressing her small self into her sister’s taller frame, gripping firmly, with no hesitation. It was brief, it was quick, but it was enough. 

“I know…” There were no tears in Arya's eyes, but Sansa hadn't expected them. “I know you must love her, or else you wouldn’t have--”

“Yes,” Sansa said, in one swift exhale of breath, like the fall of rain. “I do.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“A message for you, my lady. From the Queen.” The servant had departed as soundlessly as she’d appeared, but Sansa was caught frozen with shock, staring at the curled parchment in her hand. 

What was there left to say? she wondered, running her fingertips over the fine vellum, something catching in her chest. What was there possibly left to say? Sansa had run from her, she’d demanded her home, she’d fled to the North. And Daenerys had let her.

For long moments she didn’t dare to move, as if the letter would disappear the moment she shifted her grasp. She breathed in, lightly, caught on the knife’s edge of some exhilarating despair. 

And then, finally, she opened it.

_ Lady Sansa, _

_ I hope this reaches you safely, and that you are well. I know it hasn’t been long since your departure but time moves slower, I think, in your absence. _

_ They say that the North is beautiful in summer, and I’d like to see it, now, in a time of peace. I warn you that this will be a visit of little diplomatic importance, so I cannot linger. But I want to see you once more, and I hope you feel the same about me. _

_ They say winter lies in the northerner’s bones. I think in your heart it has always been winter, Sansa. And I want to see it for myself. _

_ Daenerys _

Sansa looked up from the parchment as if in a haze and pressed a hand to her breast, a habit of childhood she’d never broken. In the quiet dark of her room, her eyes closed briefly, but this time, no tears came. A brief visit, the Queen had said. And Sansa, knowing well how life never gave one anything without taking in return, knew not to expect anything else but that.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It was like waking to a dream, Sansa would think later, as the doors to Winterfell’s Great Hall opened and she fell into a curtsy in one perfect sweep. Her eyes were trained to the ground, even as her heart beat madly against her rib cage, a dove’s wings. 

There was silence, perfect silence, as pristine as breath against the night sky.

“Queen Daenerys,” came her brother’s voice, sounding slightly startled--perhaps he’d never seen her up close, Sansa thought, never seen how beautiful she truly was. She ached to lift her head, but could not. 

“Lord Stark,” came Daenerys’ voice, so calm, so composed. Sansa thought that she felt the other girl’s gaze rest on her briefly, the flutter of moth wings, and imagined the blush coloring her own skin. “I've long wished to see your home in the North. I thank you for your hospitality, and for the hospitality of your family.”

This time, Sansa knew she wasn’t imagining the weight of the Queen’s gaze.

Dinner passed in a fugue, Sansa sitting directly to Daenerys’ right, Bran to the Queen’s left. She busied herself with her hands, ate and drank little, and made conversation with Arya, who sat beside her. Her sister’s eyes held compassion, but there was no relief in it; neither of them could speak of the things they desired to say. Not here, surrounded by their Northern kin, and their Southron Queen.

It was Bran the Queen spoke to most, and Bran that she flattered, though Sansa knew that her kindnesses were genuine. But still, it made her wonder-- had Daenerys taken another woman, since Sansa had left? Would she now? Sansa traced her finger along the rim of her wine glass, almost dizzy, and when the sound of Dany’s voice finally reached her, it seemed as if it was coming from strangely far away.

“There is something I’d like to discuss with you in private, Lady Stark,” the Queen said formally, as if they were strangers, and Sansa felt something lift unexpectedly in her chest. “Would you accompany me to my chambers?”

  
  
  
  


The chambers that had been granted to the Queen were vast, and, anticipating her thin blood, the pulse that ran so hot and quick beneath that pale skin, had been outfitted with numerous furs and a fire which blazed as brilliantly as her white hair. Sansa stood awkwardly, unsure of what she could say now that she’d left Daenerys behind, if there were any words to fill the space between them. They’d told her, before, that she’d been quick with words; a pretty bird, she remembered, as something sad swelled within her. They’d been wrong, she thought. There was much that they'd been wrong about.

And yet she wouldn’t return to King’s Landing: she couldn’t, and so steeled herself against Daenerys’ inevitable request, or demand.

But it didn’t come.

“I’ve missed you, Sansa,” Daenerys said simply, not turning to look at her but standing at one of the tall dark windows. Through them Sansa could see the Queen’s three dragons resting outside on the earth beyond Winterfell, coiled like great cats, and she shivered. 

“I've missed you very much as well, my Queen.”

“Yet you didn’t write to me.” Dany turned, and there was something almost accusatory in the flash of her pale violet eyes. Sansa had never felt the heat of her anger, but nor did she wish to.

“I merely thought--I thought--” What had she thought? That beyond all the impossibilities of their entwined lives, that they could belong to one another, that _ people _could belong to one another? That the Mother of Dragons would take in a she-wolf, that the Unburnt would harbor any lingering compassion for a girl born to the winter? Sansa knew enough of life to know that there was so much more than distance between them. Both of them had grown so hard to the outer world; had Sansa been stupid to think that to each other they’d always be soft?

“What,” the dragon queen asked patiently, “Did you think?”

Sansa very nearly flinched, and it was a fleeting madness that caused her to say it, in one breath:

“I thought that you loved me.”

Something broke like a storm over Dany’s expression, and Sansa stood very still, conscious now that she was no longer a wolf in that room but that the Queen would always be a dragon. 

And then Dany was striding towards her, so quickly that Sansa wanted to step back, but something stopped her--was it the look in the Queen’s eyes? the sadness?--and when their mouths came together it was desperate, grating, aching of something they’d lost. 

Sansa nearly stumbled backwards, but then Dany had her pressed up against the wall with that queenly entitlement, breath hot on Sansa’s skin as she pulled her fingers through the long autumn-dark hair. “Of course,” she said, voice almost breaking underneath all the words she’d never spoken, “Of course I love you.”

And it wasn’t gentle between them that night, not after that -- but they didn’t need it to be, as Dany stripped away Sansa’s gown and they both sank at once to their knees, skin flushed against both the shadowed cold and the fire’s wicked head, tongues and teeth and lips coming together, hard enough to bruise. Finally it was safe for them to harm each other, Sansa thought, now that what had gone unspoken never could. And when Dany finally eased Sansa back onto the luxurious dark furs, and the heat of her mouth came down on Sansa’s cold thighs, then between them -- for the first time Sansa felt like a lover rather than a servant. 

Afterwards they lay entwined in the furs, Dany shivering into Sansa’s warmth, and laughing a little because of it; and yes, Sansa promised her, it was always this cold. 

“Every night since you left,” the Queen murmured, “Lasted a thousand winters.”

Something inside of Sansa felt as if it were caving in. “But we’re both here, now.” She raised herself onto an elbow, and looked down at Dany for once, rather than up to her. It was a strange feeling. “This is where I belong.”

Dany’s gaze was very serious. “I understand that, Sansa.” She paused. “You think of us as summer and winter, don’t you?”

It was true.

“Summer and winter,” Sansa said, almost sad now. “What else is there, my Queen?”

Dany smiled, cupping the other girl's chin in an outstretched hand. "Spring."

  



End file.
